Death of the Fledgeling God
by Lucifer's Seraphim
Summary: Endofgame story about the final boss battles. Some rather vague AeriSephness, I guess. This one has a rather different story structure than most.


Bottom of the Crater now, down through the thin

(**_thick_**)

fragile

(**_oh so strong_**)

skin of the Planet and now he held the very heart of it in his grip. What was the tiny flickering green light of sentience now, when he was so close to his rebirth, his apotheosis, his manifestation, his coming forth by day? Tiny flickering point of green light, hideous

(**_but her prayer is shining!_**)

in comparison to Mother's beauty, and now Her power showed itself as the thin mesh of sanguine stone that wrapped around that point of light. It was beautiful

(**_monstrous, that the Planet's core is strangled so!_**)

as only one of Mother's creations could be.

The fledgling God frowned. Something was...not right. Mother seemed...distant

(**_So cold. I am ever by your side._**)

and distracted. The pathetic group of traitors led by the puppet with no number drew near, and She was going to take care of them for him - was, in fact, doing so at this very instant. Granted, Mother had allowed them to defeat Her Divine Synthesis and Her icon of the love She held for him

(**_puppet. puppet! You have no heart and cannot feel any pain!_**)

(**_no meaning in the memory of such a being_**)

(**_you are a puppet!_**)

but now, the embodiment of his divinity came forth and the cousin of the Ultimate Black Magic, the Nova would remove the wretched things from the face of the Planet and all could proceed.

"I'm a puppet?"

He frowned again. Had he just said something? He looked about suspiciously, but saw nothing but the core of the Planet wrapped in stone. Ah, yes. His will be done on Earth _and _in Heaven!

(**_Her will be done over Earth and Heaven but most of all over you_**)

needles in flesh hacking cutting bruised bleeding broken scorched frozen crushed pummelled poisoned torn cut into fourteen pieces and thrown into the sea slashed stabbed shot impaled drowned crucified stretched kicked in the groin squeezed mangled chewed stung suffocated cankers in the mouth dusted with salt

(white-hot searing universe full of pain and agony without end or beginning and curled up around the pain and racked with it and torn with it and screaming crying and sorrowing sighing bleeding but never dying for that would be mercy and there is no mercy for me)

Bitterness, wormwood and gall, rue in his mind, Mother screaming at him in rage for She is dying and She will in spite allow him to die with Her. He is all that She can strike out at and he suffers for Her arrogance and now it all comes back, what he has done under Her will and direction, and his countless misdeeds echo in the vaults of his mind that are filled with sin-soaked memories.

Horrified, now, at all he has done, and recollection taunts him, and his life flashes before his eyes and he knows he will die soon.

It comes now, that accursed Great White Sword, and there is pain, less, amazingly, than that which consumed him as the thing he had called Mother fled, died, but even so it fills him utterly. Through a thin haze of blood that has dripped into his eye, he sees the puppet, the failure

(**_puppet with no heart and no pain, but then why does he triumph?_**)

raise the sword which has become incandescent now, and then, somehow, all pain ends.

He blinks, trying to clear the crimson fog that clouds his vision.

Is it -

But no, she couldn't -

Surprised, but vaguely expecting it all along, he reaches out and smiles. Pale skin that will not pick up any dirt or blood from his own mangled hand, thin, shapely, the wrist bearing an enormous golden bracelet; a hand that is obviously a woman's takes his own. Wide green eyes, windows into a soul that is full of forgiveness; a welcoming smile -

The woman helps the angel with one black-feathered wing step out of his body, and he stands beside her. Hand in hand, they watch as the mortal shell of one who would have been God returns to the Lifestream that created it, and then they walk through an archway made of glittering green ice into the Garden.

Wisps of white light coalesced and then faded, and the One-Winged Angel is no more, leaving the puppet, the failure, standing alone in a dark cavern with a confused look upon its face.

Author's Notes: Well. This was originally supposed to be a songfic to 'Going Under' by Evanescence, but I just couldn't make it work that way, so I ditched the songfic idea for another day. I don't know. I guess my favourite part of this story is the pain sequences, when Jenova leaves Sephiroth. As for the bracketed bits in bold and italics...well, search me. I honestly have no real idea as to what they are. Sephiroth's conscience, perhaps, or Aeris' voice.

Silverfire


End file.
